Titans Aiming To Keep OLB Harold Landry

Harold Landry‘s breakthrough contract year will earn him quite a bit of money soon. The Titans would prefer it be their cash the free agent-to-be collects.

Tennessee’s top pass rusher finished with a career-high 12 sacks and made his first Pro Bowl. The former second-round pick also totaled 43 pressures, seventh in the NFL, and a career-best 22 quarterback hits. Landry, who also added 1.5 sacks in Tennessee’s nine-sack divisional-round performance, is poised to be one of the top free agents available come March.

“I think Harold wants to be [with us], not to speak for him,” Titans GM Jon Robinson said. “We are going to do everything we can to try and keep Harold, but we understand there’s a lot of other things that need to go down, too. … We have to plan and forecast how we are going to allocate salary cap resources.”

The Titans have the franchise tag at their disposal, but the AFC South champions are projected to be nearly $10MM over the 2022 cap at this point. Though, it is still early here. Ryan Tannehill‘s cap number is set to rise from $11.1MM to $38.6MM, in the penultimate year of his deal, as well. The Titans already gave Bud Dupree a five-year, $82.5MM deal. Dupree missed time due to injury but could only register three sacks and eight QB hits in 11 games coming off his 2020 ACL tear, amplifying Landry’s importance.

While other standout edge rushers are set to hit free agency, Landry’s age (25) works strongly in his favor. Von Miller, Chandler Jones, Jason Pierre-Paul and Jadeveon Clowney are among the other big edge names set to hit the market. Of these, only Clowney (29 this month) is under 31. Among the younger pass rushers set for free agency — a list headlined by Haason Reddick, Derek Barnett, Emmanuel Ogbah and Uchenna Nwosu — Landry appears set to command the top value. Projecting the linebacker franchise tag to land north of $18MM, CBS Sports’ Joel Corry views Landry as a prime tag candidate.